


The Fall of the Academy

by EnchantedMerry



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), One Shot, Panic Attacks, SHIELD Academy, Slow Build, The Framework Universe (Marvel), but not in a major way, but the framework's interesting, but to somewhere really depressing, canon-typical tone, references to other canon characters and ocs, so call it a nostalgia trip, so yeah don't come here if you're looking for happiness, two years ago this would have been really relevant to what's currently happening in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 10:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17445056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantedMerry/pseuds/EnchantedMerry
Summary: 'Students and staff mingled alike as a cold churning anxiety ran through the air in this once relaxed place as they drew together their plans.'Set in the Framework during the rise of Hydra. Jemma Simmons is trapped in the Shield Academy along with hundreds of others as they make their desperate plan for escape.





	The Fall of the Academy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to by bro Dooomninja for beta-ing. This is the first fic I'm publishing so please do tell me if I mess up the formatting.

Some had managed to escape.

But so, so many had not- whether they could not afford last-minuet plane tickets, hadn’t got a real home to go to or just refused to forsake SHIELD.

Jemma knew she could have left, got on a plane and flown back home to her parents, she would have had to lie low for a few years, but after that she could easily have gotten a job at any number of research labs or Universities across the world. This could all be so far behind her.

Yet here she was, still inside the academy grounds with the probability of leaving sinking ever closer to negative figures.

Nominally she was tidying up the lab after the seminar she had just given on toxicology. In reality she was looking out from the windows, across the grass hills towards the woods and hidden fence that marked the edge of the SHIELD Academy. She’d come to the Academy three years before and had completed her studies in near-record time before starting to train as a teacher.

She wasn’t quite the youngest ever, going through the academy she had been vaguely aware of a boy and girl around her age who’d started two years before her. Perhaps if her Scoliosis hadn’t had complications she would have joined at the same time as them and they might have been friends, and maybe if she had been part of a group more options would have been opened to her within SHIELD. But maybe not. From all she had seen they had been very reclusive, the girl cool and driven, the boy quiet and inaccessible, then they’d both fallen off of SHIELD’s radar soon after they graduated.

Jemma sighed, giving herself a few more seconds of melancholy before she returned to organising the lab.

But as she turned away from the window she saw three figures running from the woods, briefly exposed as they crossed the open lawns. Students and staff alike had been warned to stay within or close to the academy buildings ever since new ‘security staff’ had been sent to replace the old ones as public opinion mounted against SHIELD. These new guards had made it a priority to monitor those going to and from the Academy- making it effectively impossible to leave the Academy thanks to their feats of mind-twisting bureaucracy. Director Weaver had challenged them, but without success, it appeared that someone high up in SHIELD was determined that these guards should remain.

Even from this distance it was obvious that the running figures were students rather than anyone with any degree of military training. Jemma tried to calm herself, they had probably just gone to the woods to do the sort of rule breaking she had never quite learned how to do.

 

A few minutes later she had neatened the lab and could follow her usual routine of going to the library or staff room to work for a few hours before dinner. But as she stepped outside of the Erskine Building she found herself walking a different route, towards the hub in the centre of campus, hoping she had guessed correctly and that this was where the figures had been running to.

Sure enough, stood in front of the Wall of Valor, were the three students- their voices and movements betraying a nervous energy akin to panic.

Other students were gathering around them, listening intently. As Jemma drew closer she heard odd words drifting across the room, something about ‘woods’, ‘broad daylight’ and ‘those assholes’.

‘What’s happened?’ The group turn to look at Jemma as she spoke and a silence fell as they all waited for an answer from the three in the centre. ‘I saw you leaving the woods, you’re not in trouble, just tell me what you saw.’

‘The new security guards, they were digging at least four holes- each had a diameter of around a metre and they were clearly aiming for a depth greater than that.’ Callie Hannigan answered, seeming to find it easier if she responded like she would in a lecture hall or classroom. The two beside her nodded and the other students began muttering again, speculating and hypothesising, their minds going to increasingly dark places for answers.

Their discussions were interrupted as Director Anne Weaver entered the foyer, her focus fixed on the three muddied students as she asked, ‘How did you manage to see this? Weren’t they guarding what they were doing?’

‘All of them were armed but they didn’t care about being seen.’ Amahle Nkosi replied.

‘Yeah, when Callie knocked a branch a load of them heard but one of them said it wouldn’t matter if one of us saw, they all laughed at that.’ Tayyib Toma added, earning a glare from Callie that quickly shifted to a look of apprehension echoed across the room. An unnatural silence settled over them, they were some of the smartest young minds in the world, used to complex puzzles and impossible questions but the answer to this seemed all too obvious.

It was Amahle who spoke first, her voice, which was usually so light and quick, sounded strangely hollow, ‘They’re digging graves aren’t they? Mass graves.’

‘We don’t know that.’ Weaver replied.

‘You didn’t hear how they said it. Even if they're not graves, they were talking about us like we won’t be a problem for them much longer.’

Jemma was trying to find something encouraging to say in response when the muttering started. Students pulling things together- there always being one more bit of paperwork preventing anyone from leaving, the way the Wi-Fi had started buffering before finally cutting out an hour ago and rumours of how the guards were constantly monitoring the CCTV cameras around the Academy. All this tying into a growing public animosity towards SHIELD and how an old section of the Nazi party thought to be long gone was suddenly emerging and claiming to be an older, more benevolent organisation.

 

*******

 

There was little time to dwell on the extent to which the status quo of the Academy had shifted recently, but for just a moment everyone was starkly aware of just how much things had changed.

The boiler room was the one space the staff never went into- they all knew that whatever genius the students possessed they were still in the early stages of adulthood and that most of them had been denied a true childhood, racing through school years and being held to an impossible standard. So the boiler room remained a place the students could be free, away from adult supervision and the expectation of excellence.

But now here they all were, the entire faculty of staff, from stern Director Weaver to the beloved Franklin Hall, from dry old Professor Vaughn to the barely graduated Jemma Simmons.

Students and staff mingled alike as a cold churning anxiety ran through the air in this once relaxed place as they drew together their plans.

It was hard to tell how long they had before HYDRA would move in on the Academy. It was also hard to tell how long it would be before the guards noticed that the CCTV had been tripped to hide the fact that two-hundred people were cloistered in the one part of the Academy that was not perpetually on camera. But all estimations indicated that they had precious little time and the sense of despair was increasing with every passing moment.

‘We need to split into smaller groups.’ Jemma said as she leant over a map of the Academy marked with all potential exists, ‘It’s impossible to know which of these routes would work and with hope if we’re in enough different places their forces will be spread too thin.’

‘And if only most of us die that’s still better than all of us.’ Callie’s comment is was met by some glares but none of them could say that she was wrong.

‘I should be able to rig up a coms device which can slip past any HYDRA equipment so we can get SHIELD backup.’ Hall said, his voice slightly nervous but it was enough to bring a flicker of hope back into the room. It was a reminder that they weren’t alone, that HYDRA were not the ones in power, and that they genuinely might be able to get out of this.

‘Start on it at once. Amahle Nkosi, Benny Lansdown, go with him.’ On Weaver’s instructions the three left, climbing up towards the labs. The hope was taking ground as they returned to the plans, fear still coiled inside each of them but it was joined with a sense that maybe they would make it out of this relatively unharmed.

 

*******

 

Their plans had been arranged and the distress message broadcast, now they just waited for night to fall. For this to work they needed the element of surprise. HYDRA was better armed and better prepared, if they realised what they had planned it would become exponentially more difficult to complete.

So, for the next few hours, the SHIELD Academy forced itself to maintain what had previously been normalcy.

After forcing down what food she could Jemma found herself without purpose, there was no point marking homework or planning lectures as she usually would. Sitting in the shared office space felt wrong somehow, with no work to do and the lack of internet meaning her computer just served as a screaming reminder that she had no way to contact any of the people she loved. Looking over at the clock she felt a growing dread, horribly aware that she might never be able to hear either of her parent’s voices ever again. Her phone had not had signal for hours now, as she looked down at the screen it showed her a message that would never be seen by anyone else:

‘Failed to Send: Mum, things have gotten a bit difficult here but I love you and will come home as soon as I can. Love, Jemma. Xxx’

The room suddenly felt far too small. Everything around her took on a greater presence, each little detail screaming in her mind. That homely workspace becoming a parody of itself. The similarities reminding her of all that had changed and the differences taunting her to just try to make things right. Everything had gone wrong. The Academy wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was a school, just a school for very clever students, training them and providing opportunities. Now it had been turned into a prison. Now the students who had gone through so many trails to get may have to fight to get out. How had it come to this?

As the tears started Jemma rushed out of the room.

She just sprinted aimlessly through the silent corridors. Going through the halls of the place she knew so well. Each stretch of corridor bringing new memories to life- it didn’t matter if they were good or bad, they were something different and that was enough.

As the automatic lights flickered on in the stairwell her mind fell back to thinking about her parents. It would be the middle of the night for them. They were safely asleep in the home they had moved to when she was in her early teens. She would rather die than let them come to any harm, but what would she be able to do if HYDRA went after them? What if she had to spend years on the run, what might happen to them to get to her? Perhaps that would be one advantage if she didn’t make it out of this tonight- HYDRA would have no reason to touch them.

She stopped running. She knew it would do no good to think like that, to act like this. She sighed and leaned her back against the wall, sinking to the floor.

Looking round she realised just how far she had run. A pain was slowly creeping up the side of her chest and she closed her eyes, focusing on breathing. She knew panic was a natural response to a situation like this but she always hoped she would be able to deal with her emotions in a more efficient manner, in a way that didn’t involve her wasting so much energy, in a way that didn’t leave her feeling worse with every second. Eventually the lights, sensing no movement, timed out and she was left in darkness with only a dim glow from her final sunset reaching in through the windows.

Across the academy so many others found themselves in similar positions. Sat silently, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. All wondering why they couldn’t do more, wondering why they couldn’t cope better, wondering if they would live long enough to learn to deal with all the memories that might haunt them.

 

*******

Checking her watch Jemma knew she needed to start getting ready. The lights blinked back on as she stood up she began the long walk to her bedroom. She would need some more practical clothing on, her jeans would be fine but her jumper was so light it would be easily spotted in the dark if anything went wrong and they had to hide. A small bag probably wouldn’t cause too much trouble, so long as it wasn’t heavy, just with some water and food.

She would meet her group at a fire escape at Level -1 of the Carter Building. Then they would climb up, leading themselves away from the centre of campus. This would lead them to a small open section of lawn. Crossing that to the woods would be the most dangerous part of this, but the grass had grown long since HYDRA had arrived and they should be provided some cover by that and the soft hills on that side of the grounds. After that they would be able to run across the woods and cut through the wire fence with the sheers that had been handed out to as many people as possible. Hopefully, they would then be out of most the danger and could proceed to the meeting point- a park bench a mile or so away at a nearby beauty-spot. From there they could make their way to a safe house, or just put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Academy. Internally Jemma ran through the plan over and over, comforting herself in its simplicity, in the advantage they had of knowing the area, in the way they could easily adapt if they needed to.

Her thought were broken off as a surge of energy pulsed across the Academy.

In seconds they were without power.

 

The emergency power systems started to run, giving light but little else. Jemma was running through the dimly lit corridors again, her mind racing. Had they been betrayed by someone within the Academy? Or had this always been HYDRA’s plan? Would they still have the element of surprise on their side? Did they ever have any chance of making it out of this alive?

As she reached the entrance foyer she saw who she was looking for surrounded by a crowd of people all talking, all desperate for the same answers she sought.

‘Continue as planned. Tell anyone you see to do the same.’ Director Weaver’s voice was surprisingly calm, refusing to show the panic underneath.

‘But what if they know? What if we’re walking into a trap?’ A voice asks, with others nodding in agreement.

‘Then we’ll still be better off than staying here. As we discussed before, we do not have the weaponry or food supplies to withstand a siege, and they will know exactly how to break in. If HYDRA really wants to take the Academy down then leaving by any means will always be safer than attempting to stay. There’s still a chance that we might make it out of this alive. SHIELD does not fall today. Now go.’


End file.
